The Taliban’s swift takeover has brought to power an Afghan government more closely aligned with Pakistan, stirring security concerns in neighboring India and potentially raising tensions between the two nuclear-armed rivals.
Officials in India, who supported the US-backed government in Kabul, have warned in recent days that the Taliban’s return could again make the country a haven for terrorists. The Taliban have said they would no longer allow Afghanistan to be used against other countries, but Indian officials are skeptical.
“It’s the same Taliban that was there 20 years ago,” India’s Chief of Defense Staff Bipin Rawat said last week at a meeting on U.S.-India partnership.
Indian authorities are particularly concerned about security in the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir, where a heavily militarized line of control has separated India and Pakistan since partition in 1947. India doesn’t share a border with Afghanistan, but Islamist militant groups have long targeted India over its control of a portion of Muslim-majority Kashmir.
